I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, for 25 years and extensively written about it for the last five years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Warner Bros. Doesn't Need A 'Justice League' Movie

There has been much talk over the last few years about how Warner Bros. (a division of Time WarnerTime Warner) is managing its DC Comics properties in comparison to Marvel’s successful world building. Said chatter intensified on Sunday with a New York Times profile of Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara, which teased DC Comics announcements while emphasizing the studio’s overall strength. We (yes, I include myself) may be incorrect in expecting Warner Bros. to build their DC Comics properties in an identical fashion to the current Marvel Universe. Walt Disney Studios will have to seriously readjust its long term schedule and ambitions should films like The Avengers and Thor stop pulling in blockbuster grosses. But Warner Bros. by virtue of its larger and more diversified slate of blockbusters and sensibly budgeted hits, would be mostly fine even if Batman were never to return.

Walt Disney has used Marvel Comics (which it purchased for $4 billion) as a foundation for its live-action tent pole machine. They were doing relatively fine before 2009, although the Marvel purchase (and the Lucasfilm purchase in 2012) allowed them to ingest the boy-friendly live-action franchise possibilities that it had been chasing since Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl broke out in 2003.

Disney will always have its Disney and Pixar animated films, and they aren’t remotely “in trouble” and arguably won’t be for many moons. But over four years after purchasing Marvel and 17 months after purchasing Lucasfilm, Disney is in a position where they are relatively dependent on the Marvel Studios and (eventually) the Lucasfilm output for specific demographics. Their failed attempts to craft new boy-friendly franchises like The Lone Ranger or Prince of Persia sting less because they have a Star Wars and an Avengers just around the corner.

Warner Bros. may want a multi-film connected DC Comics universe, but they don’t necessarily need one. By virtue of both the sheer amount of films Warner Bros. releases theatrically in a given year (18 films in 2013, 21 in 2014) and success with blockbusters outside the realm of superheroes, the DC Comics Universe is just one specific property they are attempting to develop, rather than a do-or-die proposition. By virtue of their copious and varied product (the $950m+ grossing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug one weekend, Her the next weekend, and Grudge Match after that), they have the most eclectic mix of any major studio.

They dropped The LEGO Movie ($400m and counting worldwide)just one week before A Winter’s Tale, just a month before 300: Rise of an Empire ($314m worldwide in about a month), and five weeks before the glorified charity that is the Veronica Mars movie. Even in terms of blockbusters, they have a generally varied release slate in most years, alternating between pre-established properties like Godzilla, genuine long-shot originals like Jupiter Ascending, and surefire cash machines like The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

They’ve even got surefire old-school hits like Blended (an Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore reunion), Tammy (a Melissa McCarthy vehicle), and a Clint Eastwood-helmed adaptation of Jersey Boys.Oh, and their previous golden ticket from the last decade, Harry Potter, is coming back in prequel form via J.K. Rowling’s screenplay Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Set 70 years prior to the Harry Potter films, this is arguably as a surefire a new mega franchise trilogy as the Hobbit trilogy, which “disappointed” fans all the way to $1.966 billion in its first two films. The DC Universe, whatever shape it might take, is just one piece of the large puzzle.

That is not to say that the failure of Green Lantern ($219 million on a $200m budget) didn’t hurt, or that they aren’t betting on Man of Steel 2: Justice League Unlikely to form the backbone of their DC Universe plans. But Warner Bros. can if need be survive, nay thrive, without a Marvel-style interconnected DC Comics film franchise. Now Warner would love to have what Disney has with the Marvel Universe (because “Yay, money!”). But they don’t necessarily need to do the massive multifaceted universe if they can’t or don’t want to. They don’t have to do what Marvel has done and they may not need to. What works for Walt Disney may or may not work for Warner Bros.

They don’t have to do a Green Lantern movie, a Wonder Woman movie, then a Flash movie, capped off by a Justice League movie that ties everything together, followed by a few stand-alone sequels (Man of Steel 3: This Time We Focus On Superman Again), B-level character films (Lobo: But For Kids!) and Justice League 2. If they so choose, they can merely have a Justice League movie every few years featuring alternating hero/villain line-ups. The model for this DC Comics game-plan is closer to The Expendables, which is a series where excitement is created each time out by virtue of which heroes and villains join the action this time around, often involving actors who wouldn’t command a fraction of the attention by themselves.

Now Warner Bros. doesn’t just want successful DC Comics films for box office profits, but also for merchandising profits as well. You generally can’t make Great Gatsby action figures or Inception pajamas. But you don’t need to make a Flash movie in order to sell Flash lunchboxes. I bought a Riddler action figure that was a tie-in for Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989. Spoiler alert: The Riddler is not in Tim Burton’s Batman. Marvel can still sell Red Skull action figures with the Captain America: The Winter Soldier toy line despite the fact that (spoiler, I suppose) Red Skull is not in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Aquaman doesn’t need his own movie, but merely a cameo in any DC movie if even that, in order to sell Aquaman video games or toys.

All Warner Bros. really needs is a single-film franchise, Justice League arguably being the likely candidate and the most probable announcement in the coming months, for which to base its entire DC Comics merchandising empire around. Not giving everyone their own film will make every new Justice League film even more of an event by virtue of who gets to play each time. It will allow them to include their television properties in the cinematic universe with less complication. If Green Arrow doesn’t require his own film franchise, you could more easily call Arrow‘s Stephen Amell off the bench for Justice League 3 as an added value element for the third entry in that specific franchise. And it will prevent the DC Comics universe from potentially consuming the resources that otherwise would go to other big movies, potential new franchises, and more offbeat projects.

By virtue of Warner Bros.’ success at crafting worldwide hits, even overtly original stand-alone properties (like the upcoming Transcendence), outside the realm of superhero genres, they don’t require a film calendar that contains 2-3 DC Comics adaptations every year. As long as Warner Bros. has the time, money, and marketing prowess to nurture unconventional blockbusters like Gravity ($712m), turn seemingly niche projects like Magic Mike ($167m) into mainstream hits, and turn seeming disasters like The Great Gatsby ($351m) into profitable ventures while managing the likes of The Hobbit: There and Back Again, they have little obligation and/or pressure to do with their DC Comics properties as Marvel has done with theirs beyond their own desire to explicitly mimic Marvel’s financial success.

Warner Bros. has had plenty of success in the last several years with stand-alone blockbusters (Gravity, Inception), exceedingly well-marketed crowd-pleasers (The Blind Side, Magic Mike), and B-level franchises that make the big bucks without getting much respect (Clash of the Titans, Sherlock Holmes). If Warner Bros. chooses to go the connected-universe route with the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash as stand-alone franchises, good luck to them and I hope they can pull it off. But Warner Bros.’ greatest strength as a studio is that they don’t have to. By virtue of their strengths as a studio with films completely unrelated to capes and tights, they have the choice to develop their DC Comics properties however they see fit.

We’ll see what choices they make. But the key thing to remember is that it’s still a choice at this juncture, and there is more than one way to build a universe.

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The announcement sounds like WB will be doing more than just JL. I agree WB doesn’t need a lot of DC franchises. JL can feature different characters each time. WB is not giving up on Batman and WW is being developed. 3 franchises is about all WB needs as the release schedule of a film every couple years works against the franchises if there are too many. So I agree but not. JL yes and also Batman and maybe WW franchises can keep them going with comic book movies for a long time.

They need that huge cash cow which fuels their risky projects like Gravity,Inception.

I have been rambling about this for a while but DC has done a great job in adopting their properties in other media except a slight sluggish in live-action department.

They have shared DC Animated TV universe along with connected animated movies. They have started shared DC Animated movie Universe with JL: war and have made great Original movies like Batman Under Redhood, Flashpoint and Superman vs The Elite. They have started shared DC live-action TV Universe with Arrow and expanding with Flash (I hope they don’t connect them to movies, I just hope Flash and Arrow fulfill roles of Superman and Batman for TV and develop them independently) , they have unrelated shows like Gotham,Constantine and perhaps Hourman too. An off-shoot like iZombie for CW.

live-action movies seems to be lagging because Marvel is basically making a TV series on a big screen. (which is not necessarily a good thing) DC movies always are 2 or 3 years apart.

It would be great if they could make a coherent Cinematic Universe without making it feel like bloated or TV like. For God’s sake don’t merge Arrow/Flash with Man of Steel Universe.

I disagree WB definitely needs a hit live-action DC property but yes not as big as MCU.

Don’t disagree that WB needs a hit DC oroperty. JL will be that hit and the new Affleck Batman series too. That is about all WB needs on the DC front for a decade if films come every couple years. Maybe add a third franchise in Wonder Woman as Gadot has options for solo WW films as well as Batman/Superman and JL. Down the road as Batman and WW wind up then bring in other DC properties. Using JL to keep the other characters in front of audiences.

I agree that obviously as a whole WB doesn’t need a Justice League film to survive, they’ll go on and continue to flourish as a studio regardless. As far as finances goes they certainly don’t need it, but it terms of comic book/superhero status they sorely need it.

I think that WB and the fans “need” and want a JLA film, I also think it’s too late to “follow” Marvel’s lead, this is 2014, everything media-wise is different from 2004 and will be unrecognizable in 2014. You can’t replicate something that was a moment of timing. “The Expendables” was a good call, assemble the team and film it! And everyone knows the JLA characters, or they know 6 of 10, or 4 of 10 or only 2 JLA’ers, but that’s still more familiar characters people knew than Barney Ross and Lee Christmas. No one knew Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalker. The slow reveal isn’t needed for the JLA!

I think it’s more a case of WB not needing a whole collection of solo franchises, than of WB not needing a JL movie. I think they definitely do need a JL movie, precisely because that’s what lets them avoid building a whole bunch of other solo franchises aside from the biggest, most popular characters (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and whomever Dwayne Johnson plays — presumably Martian Manhunter, or perhaps Captain Marvel or Cyborg I guess).

I’d bet the release schedule is more like one every year most of the time (maybe occasional years without one), and sometimes two in a year when the JL team-ups release (maybe a team-up every three years, perhaps), since they have specifically made it clear they’re upping their annual number of new films by a significant factor (a roughly 60% increase I believe). Surely at least one of those in most years (maybe not all, but most) will be superhero movies, then. The “big three” plus one or two other characters down the road, and the occasional team-up films, is enough to get at least one film on the screen every year or so.

Let’s be honest – the reason why Warner Brothers doesn’t want a JL movie is that they cannot hope to replicate Marvel success with the tired, dated DC Franchise. What do you have in DC? Batman, assuredly. Maybe Superman. Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman simply do not have the draw to pull in $100 million on their own; and likely any movie boasting all of them simply wouldn’t be as titanic a draw as the Marvel/Whedon/Disney juggernaut. DC has a problem just keeping a Superman franchise going; and with the loss of Christopher Nolan’s Batman – expect to see that well dry up too.

What’s interesting about your statement is that I’m certain people were saying the same thing about Iron-Man, Captain American and Thor before they had successful franchises. DC characters such as Wonder Woman and others are pop culture icons, in which the public is very familiar with.

Also, DC has tons of unexplored properties. Similar to Marvel, there are a wide range of characters that WB could utilize. So to simply say that the DC Universe is tired and dried up when we have yet to see other heroes on the big screen aside from the World’s Finest, is completely unreasonable.

-How does DC have issues keep a Superman franchise going when the Man of Steel sequel is merely a couple years away?

Iron Man was a lark. It paid off. But Marvel Studios’ stable of heroes was pretty bare when it came to those who captured the public’s imagination.

As a child of the late 70′s I was aware of Spider-Man because of the eponymous TV show and The Electric Company. I was also aware of Captain America somehow, but I have no idea how. That concludes my knowledge of Marvel’s heroes until the late 80′s when I learned of the X-Men.

However, well before that time I knew of countless DC heroes and villains thanks to The Super Friends (and its various off-shoots). So, to me even in 2008, doing ANY Marvel hero beyond Spidey and the X-Men was a reach.

But then, it happened. Iron Man was made and it was a very good movie. After its success, Marvel expanded its big picture to include the possibility of an Avengers movie. If Iron Man hadn’t done well, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

The thing is, DC has yet to put out a movie — including the Nolan Batman films, as terrific as they are — that captures the feel of any of Marvel’s movies. None.

I forget where I read it, so I apologize now, but the single biggest difference between the two universes is that the MU is bright and hopeful whereas the DCU is dark and hopeless — even when the good guys win.

Last thought. DC thinks that WW is too difficult a concept for audiences to handle given her mystic background, etc. Meanwhile, Marvel is trotting out a Raccoon with a machine gun as a main character. I rest my case.

To be completely honest, DC franchises can and would do fine if they followed a few basic parts of Disney/Marvel’s formula. Lead into a JL movie with two or three stand alone movies. Include the ensemble film in the contract for the actors of the lead-in films. Get a lot of input from some of the great writers of the comics for those who are writing the screenplay. Use DC as free advertising by having current writers create stories that mesh somewhat with the cinematic story (alternatively, don’t reach too far back into the comics for your modern story). It’s not that DC is tired, dated, or stale as a good story transcends such descriptors (and DC has plenty of good stories to tell). It’s that DC is letting WB trample all over their characters/stories for a quick buck rather than requiring that they put in the extra work and effort needed for that great comic to movie transition to truly work.

Why even bring up disney? You distracted me as your comments simply aren’t true. Disney is very diversified and hardly depends on the marvel franchise owning ESPN (lion’s share of cable television costs are associated with live sports), ABC (a broadcast titan), theme parks (highly profitable), and let’s not to mention a catalog that rivals Warner.

Now, I recently opted for TWX (they biggest movies studio by volume) over DIS on valuation basis and I love there properties, but I personally think DC has a better chance with expanding new genres of graphic novels (e.g. watchmen, 300) rather than the justice league. I hope ‘they see fit’ that they should not expand the justice league. Let’s face it, batman is really the only successful brand outside of the comic pages. Superman has struggled mightily in his appearance in other media (thankfully man of steel turned a little darker and appealed to the “boy-friendly live-action”, the traditional goody-two-shoe just does not appear to satisfy that demand on the big screen). Flash appears to have been outdated via email/jet planes, but perhaps there’s promise (I enjoyed the first film). Green Latern is misconstrued by the more infamous green goblin. Green Arrow is remarkbly similar to Batman. I don’t think the public will go for Aquamans heart wrenching conversations with the sea creatures, perhaps I’m wrong. I would love for TWX to develop each character, but I’m skeptical with the justice league bench, whether or not they are even capable of producing Marvel success (let’s hope man of steel is a sign of shifting tides for the superman franchise). Bring on more graphic novels, the justice league is stale.

that’s exactly my point… Good luck with the Justice League, when you can’t even get a second character off the ground outside the comic pages. Superman has nearly as many canceled proposed movies as they do actual film.

I would much rather see Warner expanding the DC universe via the Batman universe or it’s graphic novel edition. No more super man please

Which is why I specifically tailored my comments to a specific area: Boy-friendly franchise properties. In that specific area, they are indeed dependent on Marvel and Lucasfilm for the immediate future. And since they make fewer movies overall, those franchises are that-much more important.

I forgot boys don’t like sports i.e. ESPN….. And I would hardly classify this as ‘dependent’, how did DIS manage to survive before these acquisitions? They have grown a demographic tremendously well (“boy-friendly”). Maybe if the market expects future success DIS is dependent on dominating the ‘boy-friendly’ demographic so satisfy expectations (and could attribute to why DIS trades at a premium), but the livelihood of disney (we are talking about the same conglomerate right?) is by no means dependent on MARVEL or Lucasfilms.

but WB did make a hell lot of flop superhero adaptaion films(keeping in mind the batman films and that superman flick) from dc rather than marvel movies … even their worst pulled alot ! so certainly WB is too chicken to make DC movies .. they should sell DC so someone else with balls could do what they need to do

I really think all hardcore fans of comic book adaptations need to read this. It is everything I keep saying to them (but much less so these days because it’s so seemingly futile) and more. You’re exactly right — WB is such a diversified movie studio that they don’t have to do the DC Comics equivalent of Thor every other year to stay profitable. What I see constantly are Marvel fanboys hurling insults at WB like they’re doing something wrong. Some people, like myself, don’t particularly care for the Disney/Marvel blueprint for blockbuster comic book filmmaking (and even less so for how Sony handles things with Spider-Man, but that’s a different story). Looking over the slate of Disney/Marvel films from the past few years, nothing really all that important ever happens in those movies. The upcoming Captain America may be an exception, but even in The Avengers, nothing earth-shattering or game-changing really happened. The death of Phil Coulson was even taken back with the new (and terrible, I might add) tv series Agents of Shield.

I can’t speak for Man of Steel, because while I liked that movie I also recognize that it isn’t great. But the Nolan Batman movies actually felt like there were real stakes for the characters. Rachel dying in the second movie feels like something that Disney/Marvel would never have the guts to pull off in any of there movies. I also keep seeing Disney/Marvel fans balk at WB for not having a Wonder Woman movie in development, insinuating in so many words that WB is somehow misogynistic or doesn’t otherwise care about women in their comic book movies. This is just so wrong to me. Anne Hathaway was arguably what people liked *best* about The Dark Knight Rises, an entertaining but mess of a movie. And we don’t know what Snyder, Nolan, and Goyer have in store for Gal Godot as Wonder Woman, but after how much I liked Hathaway in TDKR as well as Amy Adams in MoS, I can at least say I’m optimistic about Godot’s role as Wonder Woman.

I don’t understand people’s need to constantly compare these two things as if they are somehow supposed to be exactly the same. They are different beings run by two entirely different film production companies with various different interests. Both are in the purpose of making money, and both do a fine job of it. Can we not just throw all of our differences aside and make fun of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise instead??

Scott M and his Forbes buddies (Roger Friedman) seem to be taking turns trashing Marvel. Who can forget Roger’s proclamation that Avengers would have a few good weeks at the box office and the burn out. Hah! And now Scott’s somewhat negative opinion on Winter Soldier while the critics are buzzing about it. Don’t listen to Forbes when it comes to Marvel or Warner…and For sure, don’t bet against Disney / Marvel. They have a movie roadmap through 2021 and are making great movies that appeal to all. I am buying DIS and holding long term.